ARASHI approached uncertain times in 2005 as its career entered a pivotal period, and it chose to embrace it with giddy energy on its fifth full-length album, One. The years prior revealed the group’s potential but also threw challenges at the fledgling project. Having debuted in 1999, ARASHI had already switched labels and saw its overall sales fluctuate. While singles and albums landed high on Japanese charts, sales dipped from release to release, raising worry. None of this doubt clouds One. All five performers stepped up to deliver a set of songs defined by optimism, with the lyrics emphasizing the thrill of love in its myriad forms. The members of ARASHI aren’t holding anything back either, with each leaning into their own skills to add extra character to the songs, whether via Sho Sakurai’s laid-back raps or Jun Matsumoto’s swift R&B-tinged come-ons. While the base of nearly every song is upbeat pop, ARASHI played around with the sonic palette to offer up its most eclectic release to that point. The band tries out breezy disco, pulsing techno-pop, horn-backed funk, and speedy pop-punk, but the throughline is a positive attitude toward what’s to come. That confident outlook would soon be justified. One spotlights a project building toward a true commercial breakout, which for ARASHI would arrive in two years with the album Time and the tenderhearted single “Love so Sweet.” Yet the infatuated lyricism and upbeat pace of that moment starts to take shape on One, with ARASHI figuring out what it wants to say and learning just how many different ways it can express it.